Day: January 23, 2013

Sometimes your political opposition’s arguments are so deeply disturbing yet at the same time revealing, that there’s no need for you to add any major comment to it. These types of arguments essentially can speak for themselves (and usually not in a good way). All I’ll add to this conversation is that I’ve – like many of you – come across many a pro-abort in my time who adamantly deny that life begins at conception, who’ll say it’s only a life when it becomes “viable” as per the Roe v. Wade ruling. Yeah, I know it’s warped, but this IS the “feminist” movement we’re talking about here, so keep that in mind … because what you’re about to read below is much, much worse, while at the same time being an oddly refreshingly candid admission of what we already know about the “pro-choice” crowd. Very few in the “choice” gang will own up to the below sentiment, but I’ve come across a few who will and, let me tell ya, for someone whose eyes were already wide open on this issue, my eyes get all the more wide every time I hear or read variations of this. It is astonishing to me that anyone with warm blood running through their veins can believe that life begins at conception yet still think it’s ok to terminate that life.

The writer is Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams and she gives you a LOT of insight into the TRUE inner-workings of the typical rabid “feminist’s” mind when it comes to the issue of abortion. Again, I’ll let her words speak for themselves(bolded emphasis added by me):

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

When we on the pro-choice side get cagey around the life question, it makes us illogically contradictory. I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of “scraping out a bunch of cells” and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of “the baby” and “this kid.” I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.

When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person. Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside of the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?

We’re so intimidated by the wingnuts, we get spooked out of having these conversations. We let the archconservatives browbeat us with the concept of “life,” using their scare tactics on women and pushing for indefensible violations like forced ultrasounds. Why? Because when they wave thenot-even-accurate notion that “abortion stops a beating heart” they think they’re going to trick us into some damning admission. They believe that if we call a fetus a life they can go down the road of making abortion murder. And I think that’s what concerns the hell out of those of us who support unrestricted reproductive freedom.

It seems absurd to suggest that the only thing that makes us fully human is the short ride out of some lady’s vagina. […]

Don’t they? The majority of women who have abortions – and one in three American women will – are already mothers. And I can say anecdotally that I’m a mom who loved the lives she incubated from the moment she peed on those sticks, and is also now well over 40 and in an experimental drug trial. If by some random fluke I learned today I was pregnant, you bet your ass I’d have an abortion. I’d have the World’s Greatest Abortion.

And if they don’t, is the next step leg-breaking? Faced with members oddly deciding to keep their money after Michigan passed a right-to-work law, the leadership of the Michigan Education Association sent a memo to locals telling them to monitor incoming dues and, if it declines, be prepared to take their own members to court:

Steven Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, circulated an email to local unions officials and staff instructing them to monitor revenue streams in light of the right-to-work laws, which are set to go into effect on March 27, 2013. The law allows workers to opt out of union membership unless they have an existing contract with their employer.

“We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August,” Cook wrote.

The tone of the message shocked labor reform activists.

“The level to which the MEA appears to be willing to go after its own members—the same ones whose interest they claim to represent—is amazing,” said Mike Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center. “When it comes to their revenue, we know where their priorities stand.”

Yeah, and I bet they play this old BTO song before hitting up reluctant members:

Except, unlike the guy in the alley, the union doesn’t say “please.”

Sadly, these suits seem to have a solid legal footing in Michigan; the MEA has sued before and won. But, given the recent report on declining union membership even in public unions, it looks like a short-lived victory, at best:

The union membership rate fell from 11.8 percent to 11.3 percent of all workers, the lowest level since the 1930s.

Total membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million. More than half the loss – about 234,000 – came from government workers including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.

The losses add another blow to a labor movement already stretched thin by fighting efforts in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan to curb bargaining rights and weaken union clout.

(…)

Losses in the public sector are hitting unions particularly hard since that has been one of the few areas where membership was growing over the past two decades. About 51 percent of union members work in government, where until recently, there had been little resistance to union organizing.

That began to change when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a law in 2011 eliminating most union rights for government workers. The state lost about 46,000 union members last year, mostly in the public sector.

Union officials blame losses on the lingering effects of the recession, as well as GOP governors and state lawmakers who have sought to weaken union rights.

Much to the benefit of their states overall, if the results in Wisconsin and Indiana are to be believed.

Meanwhile, like dinosaurs raging at the asteroid about to rock their world, the unions are denying the inevitable: they’re out of date, obsolete. The proof lies in their own “clients'” actions: when given a choice, they prefer to keep their money. They don’t want what the unions are offering. And the more unions resort (revert) to thuggery to keep members and their dues, the more people will make the same choice, when given the power to decide that they should have by right.

Some of you may recall that I’ve in the past praised Sharyl Attkisson of CBS for her work on the Fast and Furious scandal. For a long time, she was almost the only MSM reporter asking serious questions about what happened in that “felony stupid” fiasco

Sharyl’s also been digging into the massacre at our consulate in Benghazi last September 11th, in which our ambassador and three other Americans died at the hands of Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists. While she’s had plenty of questions for the White House, the most transparent administration ever has given no answers. Frustrated with the stonewalling, Attkisson yesterday took to Twitter to ask her questions before the public. Here are is a series of particular interest to me:

A Benghazi victim’s family member stated that Mrs. Clinton told him she would find and arrest whoever made the anti-Islam video. ..

Remember that guy who was rousted out of his home by the LA Sheriffs in the dark of the night because he had the temerity to exercise his right to free speech? (Please, the parole violation was just a fig leaf of an excuse, if that.) That’s who Attkisson is talking about.

To continue:

. Is this accurate? If so, what was Mrs. Clinton’s understanding at the time of what would be the grounds for arrest?..

Naturally, the mooks of Chicago-on-the-Potomac have refused to answer any of these or Attkisson’s other questions.

Secretary Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee today on the Benghazi massacre… assuming she doesn’t have another concussion. I would right a fat check to any congressman on the committee who asked Clinton these questions, refused to let her dodge answering, and demanded to know how, in her opinion, the video maker’s arrest and imprisonment comports with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and his natural right of free speech. (1)

Meanwhile, I’ll continue hoping for more real reporters like Sharyl Attkisson, instead of the progressive cheering section that comprises most of the MSM. (Not that I’ll hold my breath; none of these questions are difficult to think of. The media’s shame is that there are so few willing to ask them.)